The Economics of Zero-Rating and Net Neutrality

Robert Somogyi

No 2016047, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: This paper studies zero-rating, an emerging business practice consisting in a mobile internet service provider (ISP) excluding the data generated by certain content providers (CPs) from its consumers' monthly data cap. Being at odds with the principle of net neutrality, these arrangements have recently attracted regulatory scrutiny all over the word. I analyze zero-rating incentives of a monopolistic ISP facing a capacity constraint in a two-sided market where consumption provides utility for homogeneous consumers as well as advertising revenue for CPs. Focusing on a market with two CPs competing with each other and all other content which is never zero-rated, I identify parameter regions in which zero, one or two CPs are zero-rated. Surprisingly, the ISP may zero rate content when content is either very unattractive or very attractive for consumers, but not in the intermediary region. I show that zero-rating harms consumers if content is unattractive, whereas it improves social welfare in the case of attractive content.

Keywords: Zero-rating; Sponsored Data; Net Neutrality; Data Cap; Capacity Constraint (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 L12 L51 L96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ict, nep-mkt, nep-pay and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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